(No rain yet! Tonight’s sunset, via Twitter, by @sudsymaggie)
Four warnings today about the rain that seems to be finally heading this way:

First, the National Weather Service has issued a “special weather statement” – see it here.

Second, even though the first bouts of rain are NOT expected to be heavy, it still could cause power outages, says Seattle City Light. They explain why – and what you can do to try to lessen the chances – in this update.

Drivers can do their part to keep traffic moving by following these basic tips for driving in wet weather: leave plenty of following distance between vehicles; focus on driving and not on the cell phone; and check conditions and traffic before leaving. Drivers may also want to add 15 minutes or more to their commute.

Drivers who get into a collision should: move to the right to get out of traffic; stay in the vehicle until help arrives; and never stand or walk into traffic for any reason.

WSDOT crews are planning for the wet commute as well. Incident responders will be out in full force clearing roads and helping drivers along the key commute corridors, including Interstate 5, Interstate 405, State Route 520, Interstate 90, State Route 99 and State Route 16 throughout Seattle, Bellevue, Everett and Tacoma.

Our brand new daily traffic/transit thread (for your updates and ours, starting in the early morning and accessible throughout the day) will track the situation too.

Fourth, award-winning environmental activist Laura “Diver Laura” James has a reminder on behalf of tox-ick.org:

With the rains coming, it is imperative that we do our best to pick up the errant dog poop that is lurking beside the sidewalks on the grassy hills and planting strips. This poop is FULL of badness (such as e. coli and parasites such as Giardia and Roundworms) There are baby seal pups in the waters around our large storm outfalls, its up to US to help protect them!!! Even if its not YOUR dog’s poop, please pick it up! Its a race against time (and rain)!

Additionally, if you are out walking and see small bits of roadside garbage, cigarette butts, bottle caps, pens, candy wrappers, plastic bags, etc… Take a moment to pick it up and get it into a garbage can, otherwise that trash has a one way ticket directly into Puget Sound via the storm drains! Don’t let it add to the Underwater Garbage Patch off Alki Beach!

We’ll of course track the weather, the traffic, and everything related, 24/7 as usual, including our new every-weekday-morning (weekends as needed) “traffic/transit today” open threads with commenters’ reports as well as updates from us.

9 Comments

All I have to say folks is be careful this weekend, especially Sunday and Monday on the roads, the heaviest rain in almost THREE MONTHS will fall on those two days, if you haven’t cleaned out your gutters yet, do it today or early tomorrow morning as you wont have much of a chance afterwards. And to add to the rain the newest models are showing a potent wind threat for Monday now in addition the heavy rain.